


I have swept the very bravest off their feet

by StrawberryLane



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Castles, Dragons and princesses trope, Heroes & Heroines, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Tony and Clint are only really mentioned, alternative universe, fairytale, not actually in the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 04:57:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8432692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryLane/pseuds/StrawberryLane
Summary: Steve has to trek to the other side of the country to “rescue” a princess from a monster that doesn’t exist if he wants to win the bet, which is about finding out if the princess and the monster actually exist or not. Tony thinks they do. Steve is 100 % sure they don’t, because princesses and dragons are just the stuff of fairytales.They have heard the stories all through their childhoods, the stories about the monster hidden away in a tower far far away — the most dangerous man on earth. Because the monster is a man. Nothing but a man.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Jack's lament" from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

”No, I’m gonna do it! You can’t stop me!” Steve tells Sam as the other man opens his mouth, once again, to tell Steve that this idea is a particularly stupid one, even for coming from Steve, who has as many stupid ideas as the week is long. The week leading up to this gloomy Monday morning has been especially long for Sam. Because Steve is a pain in the ass.

It had begun as a bet, a bet made by Tony Stark, the genius inventor son of genius inventor Howard Stark, and Steve, who had no excuse for taking the bet other than the fact that he is stupid and was, just slightly, drunk at the time.

Steve has to trek to the other side of the country to “rescue” a princess from a monster that doesn’t exist if he wants to win the bet, which is about finding out if the princess and the monster actually exist or not. Tony thinks they do. Steve is 100 % sure they don’t, because princesses and dragons are just the stuff of fairytales.

They have heard the stories all through their childhoods, the stories about the monster hidden away in a tower far far away — the most dangerous man on earth. Because the monster is a man. Nothing but a man.

A week ago, Tony, drunk because when is he not, bet Steve, over something silly as paying for their drinks, to prove that those stories are just stories and not the actual truth. Steve, because he is Steve, is just as serious about winning the bet now, a week later, as he was that night. He will prove that the monster does not exist. Which means he is currently packing a bag taller than himself full of camping gear he has never actually used before but seem to hoard like it's going out of style.

”This is stupid,” Sam mutters. “You’re gonna get pneumonia and die. And don’t forget your inhaler. Don’t come crawling back to me after you’ve died, I won’t pay for your funeral.”

”It’s summer, Sam. All I have to do is follow the scenic routes, the hiking trails. The weather’s nice. I’ll just have to walk all day, sleep in a tent and take some pictures of an old ruin to prove to Tony that there really isn’t a monster living inside of it, and there is no princess. It’ll be a piece of cake. Who keeps princess prisoners these days, anyway? That’s such an old custom.”

"Except with your luck it's gonna start pissing it down with rain within the first few minutes and you'll get lung cancer and die."

"You don't get lung cancer from being out in the rain, Sam."

*

The first day is Great, with a capital G. The sun is shining, Steve has not yet gotten back pain from carrying around the backpack all day, and he’s gotten pretty far. He puts up his tent in a clearing, next to a smattering of daisies and makes friends with a squirrel. It’s a good day.

The second day is a bit worse. He wakes up with an itching nose and sore throat. But he soldiers on, because what else is he supposed to do. He makes pretty good progress too, especially considering since his feet are protesting for just about every step he takes. He’s never walked this much in his life before.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth days he’s just about crawling on the ground to even get forward. His feet are killing him, his back is definitely killing him, he packed way to much crap, his head is feeling like it’s full of wet cotton and his nose is stuffed.

He keeps his inhaler close, just in case.

The seventh day he just about gives up. He stays in his tent all day long, not moving a muscle except to get up to pee, because everybody needs to pee sometime.

The eight day, he rises again, like a phoenix, if phoenixes rose looking like death, which they don't. He shoulders his backpack and staggers towards where he can literally see the ruin on the horizon.

The ninth day he spends in his tent once again, because he overestimated his strength the day before. He doesn't feel like a phoenix at all.

The tenth day he finally reaches the castle, which is mostly just a tower at this point in time, the rest of it a heap of rocks on the ground. A couple of other parts of it are still standing though, but just barley.

There’s a light showing through the only window in the tower, which, as it usually is with windows in towers, are all the way up under the roof. Because fuck Steve’s life.

Steve takes a picture of the ruin, because that was what he came to do, and leaves his backpack on the ground, hidden behind some bushes. He's not entirely sure it's warranted though, because he hasn't seen another human being for days.

He sneaks towards the entrance of the castle, slowly ever so slowly opening the door, which is made of wood and somehow still functioning. The hinges makes a noise that send a shiver through Steve’s body, though, so no one has probably used it in a long while.

Being inside the castle is much like being outside of it, because it’s so destroyed. There’s sunlight shining through big cracks everywhere and there are birds singing.

Still no sign of a monster of any kind, not even a dog or a spider.

The spiral staircase in the tower goes on and on and Steve has to stop to use his inhaler several times. He curses the day he was born before setting off again. Why did God see fit to give him so many illnesses and such a weak body? Would it have killed him to auction those off a little more sparingly or evenly, instead of just giving them all to Steve Rogers?

After a million years he finally reaches the top of the staircase, at which he has to sit down to convince his heart to calm the fuck down, because he’s not ready to die yet, not for many years. His body literally aches from crawling up all those steps.

There's a single door behind him, made of wood, with those kind of old, beautiful hinges and a big metal ring as a door handle. It's eerily quiet.

Steve pushes himself to his feet and grabs the metal ring. He has to use all of his strength to force the door open. This one's been taken care of, because there's no sound apart from his own heavy breathing as he pulls it open.

It's a room. It's a standard round tower room with a window on the other side of it from where Steve's standing. There's a bed, a desk littered with books, a plush armchair. It would look like your standard room if it hadn't been for the big ol' chain-link traveling from the far wall to the bed. It's stuck in the wall, and as Steve follows the length of it to the bed, he realizes that that's a _foot_ stuck inside the metal ring at the end of it. The foot is, thankfully, attached to a leg, which is attached to a body. That's about the time Steve notices that the body, which seems to be male, even with the long mess of dark hair attached to its head, isn't the only body currently lounging in the bed. No, the body, complete with an unshaven face that is staring at him with dark eyes, has its arms, one of which is fucking _metal_ wrapped around another body, this one with flaming red hair atop of its head. This one is decidedly female, and she's looking over at Steve like he's nothing but an irritating fly.

Steve is nothing if not observant.

"Are you another fool my father has sent to "rescue" me?" It's the woman speaking, and Steve can hear the quotation marks around the word rescue.

"Um...No? I mean, do you want to be rescued?" Steve shifts from foot to foot, praying the answer is no, because the guy, who Steve just now realized is probably the monster from the stories, has sat up a little more, and the arm not currently wrapped around the princess is holding a very sharp looking knife.

"Not really no. Why're you here then? Most guys just come here to play the hero and then regret their decisions when they realize that they're no match for James at all," the woman gives a nod towards the man beside her.

The monster's name is James? That seems like an....anticlimax, really. James is such a common, regular, not scary name. Besides, monsters are usually called things like the Minotaur, because calling it something that isn't an actual name makes it scarier. James isn't a scary name. But that doesn't mean the man isn't.

"Really?" is all Steve has to say to that.

"Yes. Why're you here?"

"Because I got into a bet with my maybe friend about whether or not the stories surrounding this place are true and I thought I better check it out. I guess I just lost."

"Guess you did," the woman mutters under her breath.

"So... Can I ask who you are? And, you know, why you're here?"

"I'm Natasha, the only daughter to the king of Hydra, and this is James, the man daddy dearest left here as a challenge for anyone who asked my dad for my hand in marriage, because he's fun like that."

"You mean your dad locked you in this tower, with that guy, because he wanted to make sure your suitors were the right and admirable sort, which they would prove by killing him?"

"That guy has a name," a male voice says, just as Natasha answers Steve's question with a firm "Yes."

"I'm sorry, um, James. But why?" Steve asks, because this seriously doesn't make sense. Why would any man lock his own daughter away as a means to chose her future husband? Why not just let the girl chose for herself?

"Because that's the way he is, I stopped questioning him years ago."

"So he just left you here?"

"Yeah, pretty much. He sends some guy once or twice every year to check if James is still being a well behaved little murder pet but otherwise he keeps away. He just sends anyone who asks for my hand in marriage, without having gotten to know me, I might add, here to see if they come back in pieces or with me behind them on the horse, so to speak."

"Thing is, my dad has gotten into his head that the only man who deserves me is the one who can defeat Hydra's number one fighter, which is James. What he has failed to understand is that no one will be able to defeat James, because James has something none of those egoistical little boys have."

"It's your heart, isn't it? He has your heart?" It's not a stupid guess, based on the way James has his body wrapped around Natasha's. It would look cute, if you could disregard the way the man's flesh hand is still holding the knife in a tight grip.

"Yes. I've been in love with him for years," Natasha looks at James, her hand twitching, as if she wants to reach out and touch his stubble covered jaw.

"Natasha," James says, and there's a warning in his tone that even Steve picks up on, but Natasha seems unconcerned.

"I know, I know," she sighs, "James is not in love with me. Probably won't ever be. Cause you just can't force that kind of thing. If it's not meant to be it won't happen."

"Why don't you just leave? The door wasn't looked, the castle is barley standing as it is. It wasn't difficult to get inside, by any means."

"Because Natasha likes to play with her suitors. She thinks it's funny to sic me on them, like a dog."

"James..."

"No, you know it's like that. And I know you liked the one last week, the guy with the arrows. Why didn't you just leave with him? I was in the fucking bath when he arrived, he would've gotten you at least halfway out the door before I got up, if you hadn't chained yourself to the wall and pretended I kept you like that. Which was a fucked up thing to do, by the way."

It's like Steve isn't even in the room anymore.

"I know, and I apologized. Several times. I made you your favorite cookies, those were an apology," Natasha seems less like the sarcastic woman and more like a scolded little girl as she avoids looking at James and continues talking in a low voice about how she really did apologize.

"You gotta work a bit harder than that, Tasha."

Okay, so this really wasn't what Steve had in mind when he embarked on this journey ten days ago.

"So...um... I guess I should go now? Leave you two alone to this really weird thing you've got going on...?"

James tears his gaze away from Natasha and glares at Steve instead. "You're leaving? Already?"

"Figured you might want to be alone? This seems kind of private?"

"No, it's all right. But if you want to go... I'll just walk you to the door, shall I?" Steve is about to protest, but James has already gotten off the bed. When he's standing up he seems bigger than anyone Steve's ever seen, the metal arm seeming to show off inhuman strength.

"But you're still stuck to the..." Steve falters as James simply bends down and opens the metal ring around his ankle. It falls to the ground with a clatter. Natasha also rises from the bed.

"We saw you coming from miles away, we had time to make preparations. We've discovered, over the years, that the men my father send here has a certain view of how things should be, so why not indulge them? If they think James should be chained to the wall in my room then he will be by the time they show up. It doesn't really make sense, considering it is supposedly he who keeps me prisoner here, not the other way around, but what can you do? I think dad first did it because he thought it be better for my safety, which doesn't make any sense, if James had some kind of leash. You'd think he wouldn't leave me here with some guy if he thought he needed to protect my safety by keeping the guy in chains in the first place, but whatever."

"Anyway, all these guys that come by to be the hero seems to have this vision about how they'll storm the castle, climb to the highest tower, to find James and me in the middle of this bed, James doing unspeakable things to me, very clearly against my will. Because if that was the truth, they feel justified in killing James. Because then he truly is a monster. And they would have my eternal gratitude and we'll live happily ever after. And they would get my father's power after his death and a reputation of being a dragon slayer to boot."

"So what, you put on some kind of horrible show for these guys to make them happy before you kill them?"

"Pretty much. Now, if you had been one of my suitors, you would've made it as far as the doorway, just so you'd get a bit of a "show", before James' knife would have nailed you to the door."

"How did you know I wasn't? I mean, you weren't in the middle of... That didn't look like..."

"No, we decided to take a chance with you, because you weren't in a hurry to get here. You spent entire days in your tent, we saw that, cause there's nothing around here for miles, and you didn't draw a weapon the minute you entered the castle. And you took a long time to actually get to this room. Don't you know that the princess is always in the highest room in the highest tower?"

"Well, excuse you, I've got asthma. It took me awhile to get up the stairs, cause I had to stop to breath every five minutes or so."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about. Well, I guess I should leave now, then."

"We'll walk you to the door, give you something to eat for your journey back," Natasha says, brushing past him down the stairs.

Steve stares after her, only moving when he feels a hand on his shoulder, pushing him towards the first step.

"Why do you stay?" he asks James as they slowly descend down the stairwell.

"Only thing I've known for years, really. She was just a little girl when her father had this bright idea, barley even a teenager. And I won't leave her. We're a package deal," James sees the look Steve sends him at those words and continues, "Don't look at me like that. I might not be in love with her, god only knows why she says she's in love with me, but we're a package deal. A two for one special, if you will. Problem is, most of the guys showing up here only want her. Like she's some kind of prize to be won. So I stay, to protect her."

"That makes sense," Steve replies and then they're walking down the stairs in companionable silence, until they reach the bottom, where Natasha's waiting for them, holding a basket that gives of a whiff of still warm cookies.

"I had extra cookie dough so it was no trouble at all," Natasha says when Steve protests that he can't take their cookies. "Besides, I made way too many last week, when I tried to apologize to James."

James gets something dark in his eyes at that. "You should've gone with him," he says to Natasha, who nods. "I know, but I didn't. Maybe he comes back."

"Hopefully."

They walk him to the door, just like they said they would. Natasha holds it open for him and both she and James stand and wave as Steve collects his bag for under the bushes where he hid it before going inside.

"So nice to meet you, have a wonderful rest of your life!" Natasha shouts and blows him a kiss. He waves back and get going.

When he reaches the gates, one of which is gone, the other hanging on by sheer force of will, Steve looks over his shoulder, to see Natasha still waving and James watching him with a grin that unsettles him deep in his bones, before the door closes on them, slammed shut by a strong gust of wind.

Five minutes later, once he's reached the actual road, he hears Natasha’s surprised scream, and whips around just in time to see the redheaded woman fall out of the window in the highest tower, to her death at the cobblestones far below.

Steve hears himself scream, his head feels dizzy and he more knows than actually hears that James is laughing, a wild, crazy laugh that seems to gain strength the longer it goes on.

*

Steve jerks awake with a gasp. It's warmer than hell in the room and his blanket is damp with sweat.

"What's up? You all right?" Sam murmurs sleepily from beside him. He clearly has no problem with the warmth in the room.

"Y...Yeah, I just had a really strange dream. With a princess and a castle and a dragon. It was really weird."

"You shouldn't read that crap right before bed, I've told you," Sam says. "But you're all right, though?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'll just get a glass of water," Steve replies, struggling free from the blanket twisted around his body. He pads out into the kitchen, where he fills a glass with ice cold water, gulping it down in one go. He fills it up again, before going back into the bedroom on his tiptoes, as to not wake Sam, who is asleep again, back up. He sets his glass down on the bedside table, next to the book he's currently reading. Its cover features a bare chested man with dark hair and a metal arm and a redheaded woman in a black renaissance bodice dress at the center. The man's metal arm is wrapped around the woman's throat, his stance menacing. Natasha—the redheaded lady, is clearly struggling against James — the man's — hold, her hands pictured as trying to remove his arm from her throat. In the corner of the cover, is a smaller picture of a fair headed young man, a knight, holding a bow and quiver, filled with arrows.

The Maiden of the Tower, the title states in dark red bold letters, weaving around the couple that are front and center. Steve hums, turning the book over and over in his hands. He stares at the picture and what the fuck...?

Did James just wink at him from the cover of a book?


End file.
